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Don't force your kids to do math

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Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#161

Post by blitzar »

Aeolun wrote: post #157
blitzar wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they will now be able to do something - something that they absolutely hate A valuable life skill if you want to ever have a job or get paid.

That’s such a depressing way to see things. I’m sure most people do something they don’t utterly despise, is only because they select for their local optimum.

> I’m sure most people

If you live in the bubble where you experience this, congratulation you live a wonderfully privileged life, never interact with anyone or are totally oblivious to the experiences of all the people you interact with on a daily basis.

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#162

Post by crq-yml »

jamesy0ung wrote: post #53

As someone who just finished school, I’m trying to figure out how to get genuinely interested in mathematics. I’ve never been particularly strong at it, yet I’m planning to enter a university program that demands a high level of math. The problem is, it’s hard to motivate myself to study math for its own sake. For example, I loved learning programming because it’s hands‑on—I can build something and immediately see th…

It's easier to appreciate math when you are disinterested in the results or applications, because the nature of academic topics near the core grouping of math/philosophy/empiricism is that they are discovered with a lot of meandering at first, and then sometime down the line they become repurposed into a direct application that can be learned by rote. School tends to instruct in some of the most directly applicable stuff first - the "three R"s" plus some civics and training aligned with national goals. And that means that school predominantly teaches associations between math and rote methods, to the disgruntlement of many mathematicians. The "meandering" part is left to self-selected professionals, so it doesn't get explored to much depth.

So I think a good motive for math study is really in games and puzzles, where the questions posed aren't about win/lose or right/wrong, but about exploring the scenario further and clarifying the constraints or finding an interesting new framing. Martin Gardner wrote a long-running column and a few books in this vein which are still highly regarded decades later.

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#163

Post by ykonstant »

ludicrousdispla wrote: post #126
ziofill wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, no. Universities are great places to learn math. You’re misrepresenting the genuine passion for teaching that many university instructors have.

Sorry, no. For whatever reason, many University programs use high level math classes as a filter to weed out 1st year students from that program. If university instructors had a genuine passion, and ability, for teaching high level math then they wouldn't accept that as an outcome.

That is unfortunately true; not only in the US, but all around the world. The particulars do depend on the instructor, and many if not most instructors try to be motivational, but the syllabus is perfectly clear: "this is a weed out class". And when it comes to test time, the syllabus wins.

The only thing I disagree with in your comment is about the instructors: they want to be employed, and they have to accept the syllabus and testing standards. It is not about passion and ability to teach (most, especially younger ones, are full of those); it is about meeting the departmental requirements.

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#164

Post by hilbert42 »

hahamaster wrote: post #43

I tell my kid that math is a language. You learn to speak it, just like you learn to speak any other language, slowly, by listening, understanding, speaking, intuitively recognizing patterns, rules and exceptions. When you start to become fluent you translate problems into math and solve them. At school they keep trying to make them memorize useful phrases, like a tourist that goes to Paris and learns how to say "whe…

"At school they keep trying to make them memorize useful phrases, like a tourist that goes to Paris…."

Like learning dozens of trig identities without any explanation about why one would need them. As I've mentioned elsewhere learning math for the sake of it isn't enough. For most of us math has to have relevance, and for that we have to link it to things in the real world.

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#165

Post by kstenerud »

kleene_op wrote: post #152
laurent_du wrote: post #102

Very poor take. The author clearly has very limited experience with raising kids. Most kids won't do difficult things if you don't push them. Playing music, learning to spell correctly, doing mathematics, and so on. A very small minority of kids will do all of that easily and for the fun, but you can't rely on it. If you don't push your kid to do their 20 minutes of piano every day, they will half-ass it and will sto…

That was exactly my sentiment. My parents pushed me hard to do piano when I was around 10-12. After a year that went pretty well I was starting to get lazy and put very little work and investment into preparing for the next lesson. They still had me play piano a full year until they eventually gave up and bitterly told me what a waste my resignation felt to them. 20 years later, I got back to playing piano, and I can…

My parents forced me to play piano, right up until I told them that I'll destroy our piano if they don't lay off, and any consequences they could think of would not stop me (I was normally an obedient child, but enough was enough).

That got their attention.

30 years later I picked up classical guitar and loved it! Do I thank my parents for forcing the piano on me? Hell no.

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#166

Post by rerdavies »

laurent_du wrote: post #102

Very poor take. The author clearly has very limited experience with raising kids. Most kids won't do difficult things if you don't push them. Playing music, learning to spell correctly, doing mathematics, and so on. A very small minority of kids will do all of that easily and for the fun, but you can't rely on it. If you don't push your kid to do their 20 minutes of piano every day, they will half-ass it and will sto…

The really important thing is to teach kids to find their joy.

At the end of my second year of piano lessons, my teacher took me into her living room, and we listened to Glen Miller records for most of the hour. And then we had a cup of tea, and she told me, "this is the music that I love. I play piano because I love that music, and I want to be able to play it myself. What kind of music do you like?" I didn't really have an answer. So she told me that we should stop doing lessons, but once I found music that I loved, she'd be happy to teach me how to play it.

In my early teens, I discovered Miles Davis. Once I had found my passion, all the hard work became play. I actually ended up learning to play jazz guitar, not piano. Even the heavy lifting was pure joy, because it had purpose and meaning.

I didn't become great at mathematics until I discovered the joy in mathematics (another brilliant teacher handed me a stack of old math contests, and said here, you might find these fun. I placed 4th among 20,000 students).

I didn't learn to write well until I discovered the joy in writings. (An absolutely brilliant English teacher who made us assign ourselves our own grades, but broke his promise in the end by upgrading all my papers to A+'s).

And I gave my kids the room to find their joy as well.

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#167

Post by cardanome »

renerick wrote: post #119
somenameforme wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This becomes even more true in higher level maths where programming language style functions would make everything vastly more clear, and easily typeable, than the traditional Greek symbols. sum(x+3, 1, 4) is just so much more clear (and consistent when generalized across other operations) and practically as concise as the mathematical way of expressing that which I cannot even type. Multiple variables would be a bit…

It's hard to debate that mathematical notation has a lot of room for improvement. High level algebra is very cryptic and often looks like an arcane incantation rather than something comprehensible for an unknowing person. That said, as a person who moderately enjoyed math in high school and university, this functional notation would make me hate math infinitely more. It's would look like Lisp, which, at high level, l…

Might I introduce you to our lord and saviour APL? Infix notation and was originally created to be exactly that, a better math notation.

https://aplwiki.com/wiki/Comparison_with_traditional_mathema...

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#168

Post by pyfon »

laurent_du wrote: post #102

Very poor take. The author clearly has very limited experience with raising kids. Most kids won't do difficult things if you don't push them. Playing music, learning to spell correctly, doing mathematics, and so on. A very small minority of kids will do all of that easily and for the fun, but you can't rely on it. If you don't push your kid to do their 20 minutes of piano every day, they will half-ass it and will sto…

My take is Maths, Science and English push. Everything else let them decide what they like. Do parents push kids at every damn subject?

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#169

Post by numpad0 »

eastbound wrote: post #128
paganel wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world needs less Asian kids being forced to play piano since a very early age and it needs more kids (Asian and not only) that are left to explore the world. Without that exploration the kids won't make the world their world, at best they'd only make it a bad approximation of what we, our (older) generation, best think that that world should be.

Any proof of why it is best? I prefer to live among educated people, thank you. I prefer my peers to go through forced history lessons, forced math lessons so they don’t tank my government, and biology lessons so they don’t tank the health system. Yes they won’t be able to determine their gender, but that will give me grandkids, thank you very much. Same goes for piano or sports. Yes we need to pull people upwards, o…

I kind of get the both sides of the argument. It kinda feels wrong on one hand. Lots of people agree. The other hand, it kinda, just works. Great. Everyone's hit with down-trend TFR anyway so maybe not it.

> at best they'd only make it a bad approximation of what we, our (older) generation, best think that that world should be.

Also, this part in GP doesn't feel exactly right to me. The problem doesn't seem to be in education, but rather lack of systematic resistance in current systems of society against humans weaponizing the system as tools to hamper progress of humanity as means to win minor inner struggles which is stupid. But the world doesn't seem to be moving in a wrong direction, only slowly.

Asian kids in 80s dreamed of bunches of permanent artificial space habitats running on fusion reactors. Still do. We've only gotten ground based fission reactors and space motor homes since then. But at least we are moving in that direction, just slower than at the ideal rate.

China's just done a humanoid robot marathon event. The winner completed the race. They're definitely in the future. US is, in a state not in line with site guideline to describe. And the latter is supposed to be more correct state than the other? How is that possible?

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#170

Post by cardanome »

seethedeaduu wrote: post #114
laurent_du wrote: post #102

Very poor take. The author clearly has very limited experience with raising kids. Most kids won't do difficult things if you don't push them. Playing music, learning to spell correctly, doing mathematics, and so on. A very small minority of kids will do all of that easily and for the fun, but you can't rely on it. If you don't push your kid to do their 20 minutes of piano every day, they will half-ass it and will sto…

Oh yeah let's turn otherwise fun hobbies into a forced chore, that will surely be great for the kid. Forcing kids to learn to spell when they have learning difficulties (eg dyslexia) doesn't usually go well either it's just causing suffering for the kid.

The problem in this discussion is that people here seem to miss that both an excessively authoritarian parenting style is bad but also going full liberal and just letting them run wild is not the solution. Sometimes children need guidance an a gentle push.

Even as a adult I sometimes need to get pushed. I sometimes take guided courses so I don't skip over the hard but important parts of learning a new thing.

Just don't push your children too hard or you do more harm than good. Accept that they are not you and have different interests and needs. Like make them practice an instrument but give them a choice which one. And if after a few years they still hate it, well you tried. Maybe it is not for them.

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